Identification

Title

Effect of superrefraction on inversions of radio occultation signals in the lower troposphere

Abstract

Radio occultation remote sensing of the Earth's atmosphere by use of GPS encounters problems in the moist lower troposphere (planetary boundary layer). The negative errors in retrieved refractivity (bias) may not be explained by the horizontal inhomogeneity in refractivity. In part, these errors can be attributed to the use of signal tracking algorithms inappropriate for the complicated structure of radio occultation signals propagated through the moist troposphere. However, another fraction of the negative bias in retrieved refractivity can be related to the superrefraction. In this study we introduce the problem and give an estimate of the negative refractivity errors in the moist planetary boundary layer, which in some cases can be as large as âˆź10%. We show that the magnitude of these errors significantly varies over oceanic areas. We validate the canonical transform method by use of the radio occultation signals simulated for complicated refractivity structures, including multiple superrefraction layers and small-scale irregularities. We find that this method does not introduce errors additional to those existing in geometric optics. Also, we discuss and estimate an additional error source when inverting occultation signals by radioholographic methods: insufficient extension of the acquired signal, which can contribute to about 1% error of the retrieved refractivity.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7r78ghx

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2003-06-14T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact